Thursday, April 22, 2010

Mongol (2007)

Not a historically accurate film concerning the rise of Genghis Kahn, but still a lush depiction of Mongol life with its juxtaposition of beauty, intimacy, and cruelty. That and just listening to the language is a pleasure. The film's major downside is that while it's depictions of period combat starts out realistic, it transitions into full on Hollywood-style warfare toward the end.

Apologies for the campy trailer. It was the best of a bad lot.

It's an epic film, but then again anything having to do with the Mongols during the time of their empire has to be epic in scale. They conquered Song China--a sprawling empire unto itself--and besieged Baghdad in 1258 using steppe horsemen, Chinese infantry and engineers, Christian soldiers from France and Georgia, and Persian artillerist. Their land empire led to a massive surge of activity in the super economy that spanned Eurasia and Africa, and then spread the Black Death from Southwestern China all the way to Scotland and Scandinavia.